LONDON — More than 700 people convicted of a crime they did not commit. At least four suicides. A pregnant woman sent to jail. Bankruptcies. Broken marriages, ruined lives.
The details of one of the worst legal injustices in British history have been reported for years, but somehow remained unknown to the majority of the public.
Until this month. An ITV drama series, “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” which began airing Jan. 1, accomplished something that eluded politicians for a decade.
New show dramatizes the fate of hundreds of people who ran Post Office branches in Britain and who were wrongly accused of theft when a faulty technological system called Horizon created false deficits in its accounting.
Between 1999 and 2015, Correos pursued them in court for losses that never occurred. Some were imprisoned.
Under pressure, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this month promised a new law to exonerate and compensate all victims, a radical intervention that aims to finally deliver justice.
And police said they would investigate whether Post Office officials — who for years refused to admit that the technology they forced managers to use was defective — should face charges. Meanwhile, one of her former directors, Paula Vennells, returned an honor awarded by the Queen in 2019, after more than a million people signed a petition demanding she be stripped of it.
All this has left an intriguing question: how is it possible that a television program has achieved more in one week than investigative journalists and politicians have done in more than a decade?
Journalism gets “into your mind,” said Gwyneth Hughes, a writer on the show. “While the drama is designed to touch your heart.”
Nine million people have watched the series, ITV said.
An official investigation into the scandal was launched in 2020 and more than £148 million, or more than $188 million, has been distributed to victims. In 2019, 555 branch managers successfully challenged the Post Office in the High Court.
Despite this, of the 700 criminal convictions, only 93 have been annulled. Since the drama aired, more victims have come forward, but dozens more died before compensation could be obtained.. When Horizon declared branch accounts to be in deficit, managers were contractually obligated to make up for them.
Some paid to avoid prosecution, even though they had done nothing wrong. Others admitted to minor crimes to avoid jail time even though they were innocent.
Fujitsu, the Japanese maker of Horizon, is also under pressure, with politicians hoping to recoup some of the costs of compensating victims.
Mattias Frey, a media professor at City University of London, fears that viewers have seen a “simple David and Goliath story” while lawyers and politicians must deal with something more complicated.
“I hope they do justice to our beautiful mailmen. But also that they find a way to do it that doesn't cause more problems in the future,” Hughes added.
By: Stephen Castle
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7074293, IMPORTING DATE: 2024-01-17 20:52:05
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